Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser* Working Paper #378 – July 2011
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VOICES OF THE PEOPLES: POPULISM IN EUROPE AND LATIN AMERICA COMPARED Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser* Working Paper #378 – July 2011 Cas Mudde, a visiting professor of political science at DePauw University (2011–12), has taught at various universities in Europe and the US and was a visiting fellow at the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies during the 2009–2010 academic year. His most recent book, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2007), won the Stein Rokkan Prize and was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2008. His coedited volume (with Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser), Populism in Europe and the Americas: Threat or Corrective to Democracy? is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press. He holds a PhD from Leiden University (1998). Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). He is the recipient of the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship for a two-year research project on populism in Europe and Latin America, which he will undertake at the University of Sussex during the 2011–2013 academic years. With research interests that include populism, democracy, and Latin American politics, he has published in Democratization and the Latin American Research Review, among others. He holds a PhD from the Humboldt University of Berlin (2009). * Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA) and the 2011 Joint Session of Workshops of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR). For helpful comments and suggestions on different drafts of this paper we would like to thank Carlos de la Torre, Jason Frank, Sara Kalm, Amy Linch, Raúl Madrid, Pierre Ostiguy, Andreas Schedler, Kurt Weyland, and the two anonymous reviewers. Of course, all errors are ours alone. ABSTRACT While populism is a hotly debated topic around the world, most scholarship suffers from conceptual confusion and regional singularity. This paper compares European and Latin American populism, on the basis of a clear minimum definition, along three dimensions that dominate the scholarly literature on the topic: 1) economy vs. identity; 2) left-wing vs. right- wing; and 3) inclusion vs. exclusion. Empirically, our particular focus is on four prototypical cases of the predominant type of populism in these regions in the 1990–2010 period: Jörg Haider and the Freitheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party, FPÖ) and Jean-Marie Le Pen of the French Front National (National Front, FN) in Europe, and Bolivian President Evo Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement for Socialism, MAS) and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his Movimiento V [Quinta] República (Fifth Republic Movement, MVR) in Latin America. While our findings confirm some generally held beliefs, they also challenge and clarify some others. Among the more notable conclusions are: 1) populism in Latin America is more ethnic than populism in Europe; 2) the difference between “right-wing” populists in Europe and “left-wing” populists in Latin American is mainly a consequence of their affiliated ideologies, not their populism; 3) in material, political, and symbolic terms European populism is primarily exclusionary, while Latin American populism is predominantly inclusionary; and 4) populism is more important in Latin America than in Europe in electoral, political, and ideological terms. RESUMEN Si bien el tema del populismo es ampliamente debatido a lo largo del mundo, la mayor parte de las investigaciones al respecto sufren de confusión conceptual y aislamiento regional. Este artículo compara el populismo europeo y latinoamericano basándose en una clara definición mínima y en función de tres dimensiones que dominan el debate académico sobre el tema en cuestión: 1) economía versus identidad; 2) izquierda versus derecha; e 3) inclusión versus exclusión. En términos empíricos, el foco de la investigación radica en cuatro casos prototípicos del tipo de populismo que es predominante en cada una de estas regiones en el período 1990– 2010: Jörg Haider y el Freitheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) y Jean-Marie Le Pen del francés Front National (FN) en Europa, y el presidente boliviano Evo Morales y su Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) y el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez y su Movimiento V [Quinta] República (MVR) en América Latina. Mientras nuestros hallazgos confirman una serie de opiniones comunes, también ponen en cuestión y clarifican ciertos argumentos. Entre las más notables conclusiones cabe destacar las siguientes: 1) en América Latina el populismo es más étnico que en Europa; 2) la diferencia entre populismo de ‘derecha’ en Europa y de ‘izquierda’ en América Latina es antes que nada una consecuencia de las ideologías que aparecen afiliadas a cada unos de estos populismos; 3) en términos materiales, políticos y simbólicos es posible indicar que el populismo europeo es fundamentalmente exclusivo, mientras que el populismo latinoamericano es principalmente inclusivo; y 4) en términos electorales, políticos e ideológicos el populismo es más importante en Latinoamérica que en Europa. Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser 1 INTRODUCTION Like most political phenomena, populism is studied mostly nationally and partly regionally. The first studies of populism were focused exclusively on the United States, while later work looked at Latin America and Western Europe. Few cross-regional studies of populism exist (notably Weyland 1999), while most generic studies of populism remain fairly theoretical and empirically voluntaristic (e.g., Laclau 2005; Taggart 2000). This situation is neither unique to the topic of populism nor without compelling reasons. Despite an ever-growing body of academic and nonacademic studies of populist leaders and movements in individual countries, much of this work is still limited to a small number of usual suspects (e.g., Peronism in Argentina, the Populist Party in the USA, or the National Front in France). Hence, even regional comparisons often suffer from significant blank spots, being overly influenced by developments in a few countries. At the same time, it is often hard to find regional patterns, given the many disparities among European and Latin American countries. For instance, despite the plethora of articles and books on populism in Europe, giving the impression that it is the dominant ideology throughout the continent, populist parties are relevant in only a minority of European countries. Moreover, European and Latin American countries differ from each other on so many levels—economic, political, social—that a cross-regional comparison is often seen as comparing apples and oranges. While these are all valid concerns, there are also important potential gains from cross-regional comparisons. By looking at a phenomenon outside of its context, one could develop new insights. First of all, a cross-regional comparison could help better explain generic aspects of populism, i.e., elements that are part of populism in every context, and, second, it could also shed light on the different forms that populism takes in particular world regions. These are the key aims of this paper, which analyzes both the core attributes of populism and its specific features in Europe and Latin America. In theory, populism is an independent ideology, unattached to any particular other ideology. In practice, populism is almost always combined with one or more other 2 Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser ideological features. Which ideological features attach to populism depend upon the socio-political context within which the populist actors mobilize. Seen in this light, the rise and consolidation of populism is highly determined by national, regional, and historical circumstances, since the latter influence the shape of political ideologies, particularly when it comes to addressing “the people” living in a given territory in a particular point of time. At the same time, while populism does take a different shape in Europe and Latin America, populist actors always favor a particular type of politics, which is not anti-democratic per se but, rather, at odds with liberal democracy. We will illustrate these arguments in our comparison of contemporary populism in Europe and Latin America. It is important to note that the literature on populism in Latin America is much older and more diverse than that on Europe; for example, it includes major works by economists and historians, whereas European work is almost exclusively by political scientists and, though less, sociologists. As far as the phenomenon of Latin American populism is concerned, most literature on Latin America considers it to include three key features; it is 1) predominantly left wing (see, e.g., Freidenberg 2007; Gratius 2007; Vilas 1994); 2) chiefly economic (see, e.g., Cardoso and Faletto 1969; Dornbusch and Edwards 1991; Weffort 1978); and 3) mostly inclusive (see, e.g., Collier and Collier 1991; de la Torre 2000; Panizza 2005). Populism in Europe did not become a major concern of academic research until the 1990s; whether or not this is a reflection of the more recent emergence of (mass) populism in Europe is a matter in dispute. Within the past two decades the literature on European populism has exploded, easily overtaking that on populism in North and South America. While many issues are still heavily debated, the literature does seem to agree on the following points: populism in Europe is 1) predominantly right wing (see, e.g.,